Letters from the Sky
by Scarlet Royal
Summary: Castle goes back to some painful childhood haunts and remembers why he became an author. In the shadows of a graveyard he confronts a broken past and something he didn't see coming…


**A/N:** _Castle goes back to some painful childhood haunts and remembers why he became an author. He wanted to become an image of something much greater. Forecast: Tissue Warning_

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**Letters from the Sky**

**According to Richard Castle** there were two types of people in the world: The ones who inspire and the ones who are inspired.

In his mind you could fall in the first category, the second, or preferably, you could be a culmination of both of those qualities. Richard Castle wanted to be the type of person who could leave the ridges of his thumbprint on the convolutions of the brains that belonged to the people he touched. Not only did he want that, but if you were to lift his skull, he would want you to see a collage of humanity; the foray of scattered marks.

He wanted to be touched by the world's fingerprints.

Once, when he was younger, he met somebody who (he would tell you) embodied all of these characteristics. He was the picture of life and everywhere he went he didn't just wander…he touched, he observed, he truly lived.

It was the summer of 1980 and Rick was nine years old living in the New York City suburbs with his mother, who was then a struggling actress. Amid the brightly colored jumpsuit-like clothing, black jackets, and the small modernized flats with their pale colored paint schemes, there were two boys sitting on a street curb. The first boy you already know. He became the famous author that the world has come to adore and admire. The boy next to him you don't know, but he shall be introduced because this is his story, too.

"I feel my backside fryin' like a pancake!" the other boy mused. He was a redheaded spitfire who was just as mischievous as little Rick Castle and then some. They were bookends and inseparable. Wherever you found impish Sam, you wouldn't be surprised to see Rick not too far behind.

"That's a simile!" little Rick laughed. He glanced over at Sam, who put a hand on his head in mock disapproval of his friend being Mr. Smarty Pants, so Rick added, "It's a word I found in a book when mama dropped me off the library. To say that your butt feels like a pancake is an example of a simile."

Sam laughed. "You and them words, Rick."

"Well," said Rick, "I have a metaphor, now: My butt _is_ a frying pancake."

"I think we should be a goin' then," Sam decided. "My butt is feelin' all them metaphors, too!"

To avoid this obvious discomfort, they found refuge in tiny, old-fashioned ice cream store (that was thankfully air-conditioned). It was run by a jolly old man who loved their company. He didn't mind if they sat around much, as long as they weren't knocking down smaller children's ice cream comes.

"I have some things for you, buddy," Sam said. He took out a rubber banded stack of baseball cards and his small piggy bank.

He wasn't done yet because he continued to dig in his duffel bag.

"Why are you giving me this?" little Rick said. His brain couldn't wrap around why his friend would give him all of his precious valuables.

"Wait, Rick, I have one more thing fer ya." He pulled out a battered edition of _The Hardy Boys_ and he placed it in Rick's small little hands. "This is fer all the readin' ya do, Rick. One day yer goin' to be an author with all that readin' and all them metaphors."

He laughed and little Rick laughed back. Since he was shy (at the time), Richard was glad to have a friend who could do most of the talking and the joking around. Sam just liked being around Rick, even when he didn't have to say much. He was a real friend who was there for him when he needed it. Rick's mom wasn't around much and he liked the companionship. But, he did know that was what his mom had to do for them survive.

"Why are you giving me all this stuff, Sam?" Rick asked. He felt a twist in his stomach. "It's all your treasures."

After some time Sam spoke.

"You remember my grandma, Rick?" Sam said. He absentmindedly pressed his thumb into the table leaving his fingerprints on its luster finish. "When she died, she had her ashes scatter 'round the ground. Now she is a part of the flowers in the spring, the puddles of water on the ground, the rain that comes in the morning."

Rick just said nothing and he felt his blue eyes shift to the floor. Sam continued.

"Rick, I wanna be like that. I wanna be the image of somethin' greater. I don't want to be held down with this stuff…fer now."

Rick was still in a startled silence at the gravity of the topic, so Sam tried to get him to talk again.

"Rick, you can leave either a cleansing fingerprint on the world, or a greasy one," he smiled. "I don't wanna leave a greasy one, so I try to wash my hands and do-gooder stuff like that."

Little Sam stopped making fingerprints on the table and for the first time in Rick's friendship with Sam, he saw him stop smiling. It was as if he temporarily turned into another person who was so much more serious. Rick could feel the overbearing silence between him and his friend, so he tried to speculate why Sam gave him his things. He guessed with the guesses that were expected from a nine-year old.

"Are you going on a trip?"

Little Sam shifted in his chair and said, "Yah, I'm goin' on a trip soon. I don't know when, but I can feel like it is a comin'. I just want you to have the stuff fer now, that's all. Can you do a little treasure sitting fer me then?"

He forced a smile and nodded to show that he would watch his items. Rick believed it. He believed everything was going to be fine. He was just going to do a little treasure sitting for his friend. Then, he would have more days in the ice cream shop, where he'd watch Sam press his fingerprints into the lacquered table finish, while talking about finding meaning in life. Looking back, however, Rick was now the one who would sit at the empty booth all alone as he searched for remnants of Sam's fingerprints and the reason for such a meaningless death.

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For some time after that meeting, whenever Rick came to Sam's house to ask if he could come and play, his parents shooed him away and said that Sam had been bad. Rick started to think something was wrong when he came to his house day after day and got the same response from his angry mother and father. Maybe Rick shouldn't have pressed on the doorbell so much. _Maybe that was why they were so mad_, he thought.

One day, on August 15th, Castle's mom got a call from a worried neighbor at three in the morning because they heard a loud ear-splitting noise coming from a neighbor's house. He crept in the hallway and heard the conversation.

"This is so horrible," Martha said, shaking her head in disgust at the terrible news she was hearing over the phone. "Sam's too young to die."

At the second Rick heard those words he bolted outside his house and had his mother chase him into the street. He watched with horror as a gurney left Sam's house. He struggled to see and when he could, he felt like he was rammed head-on by a freight train. Sam's little body was placed on top of the gurney and there was a bullet hole in his chest that ceased to flutter up and down. He was the closest shade to pure white Rick had ever seen. With panic mounting in the pit of his stomach, he ran to the side of the gurney and the paramedics pushed him away.

"Time of death was…" the M.E. on the scene murmured. Then Rick crumpled to the ground and pounded his fists into the pavement and cried out into the darkness. His mother quickly scooped him up and wrapped him in a comforting embrace as he sobbed uncontrollably and his small frame convulsed.

"Rick, Sam passed on…I didn't want you to hear it from the telephone. I am so sorry…"

Amid the uncontainable tears he asked, "Why…why…did he have to die? Who killed him?"

Martha just gave the best answer she could give, "I don't know who would do that, sweetheart."

To this very day Castle didn't remember how long he cried there with his mother by the side of the road. The last of his memories concerning Sam involved his charcoaled ashes being sprinkled over a patch of tall grass under a tree in the cemetery, Sam's non-grieving parents, and the goodbye note that Sam wrote to Rick. It was tucked into one of the last pages of _The Hardy Boys_ book. One day, when Rick was reading the book after Sam's funeral service, the note came fluttering out of the pages like a feather. It was almost like getting a letter from the sky.

He still had that book to this very day.

Four years later, Rick found out that Sam was killed by his parents. He spent hours with detectives who asked him about Sam and what his last days were like. He told them that Sam could not leave his house for the longest time and then the detectives finally got a hold of Sam's parents. Apparently, Sam was abused since he was little and he never told Rick anything…except…just to treasure sit some beloved items.

It was heart rendering to find out who did it, but the "Why?" still remained. He was so obsessed with that question that, when he grew up, he tried to answer it with thousands of words that poured out in novels. I was right when I said, _"One day yer goin' to be an author with all that readin."_

I would have never thought in a million years that he would start writing because of me…Sam.

Yes, this is the story I can tell anybody if they just _listen_…

This present day I was watching Castle as he is sat under the Red Oak tree where I am scattered. Sometimes, I want to send him a letter from the sky and tell him that I am a part of everything now and he is free. When you die, you too will be a part of everything. You will be the ashen dust that nourishes the flowers that bloom in May, the runoff puddle of water that flows into a river, or the rain that falls softly on your loved one's face.

You never leave anybody behind.

For the first time you are able to fully embrace everything and everyone like no way you could ever fully imagine.

The only problem is that those who remain don't understand that…They can never completely wrap their minds around the idea because they are human. All humans long for the tangibility of things, the proof. I know at least I did.

Nobody can see _everything_.

As I continued to look at Castle kneeling by my ashes, I heard him speak. In a quieted whisper he addressed me.

"I met somebody you'd like awhile ago, Sam. She's the kind of person who doesn't leave a greasy thumbprint."

I laughed even though he could never hear me. He laughed at the same time, too.

"Well," he continued. "I think Kate is a lovely soul and I still need to tell her that and show her that, but I am scared. I don't want to lose her like I lost you all those years ago. I think that's why I don't really want to get attached to things and I move on a lot. I don't want to feel that…the loss. But, I want to change and come to an acceptance of things. Not forget, but I want to accept…" He threw a twig away from my ashes. "I also want to tell her about you and why I started writing. You know, you are the two people who have kept me writing through this whole crazy venture."

I smiled, but the next thing he said made my eyes tear. It was too much to take.

"When I write and pick up my pen, I want to capture something greater than myself…something like the difference you and Kate made on me. I want to touch the world."

"So, I have been thinking lately," he murmured. "I thought about how you said you would be everywhere, so I think I need to give you something."

Rick took out my battered _Hardy Boy's_ book from his jacket and he began to dig a small hole where my ashes were. He smiled at the book and glanced at it one last time before he placed it into the black earth. I could see that he kept the note I wrote him and he wrote one back to me and placed it in the book. Maybe one day, when Iwas in acceptance of what happened to me, I would be able to read it. But, I had a feeling that that would still be a long time coming.

He exhaled as he slowly let the black earth cover up the book that would never be seen again.

"Do a little treasure sitting for me?" he asked.

A slow rain began to fall from the heavens; Rick looked up and let it descend freely upon his face. He remembered what I had said. Slow tears began to fall from his broken face, but then he smiled. He got up off his knees and began to walk away; arms extended into the rain that was now my embrace.

I felt a pang as my best friend walked away, but at that moment, I finally turned to see a glowing light which is everything; the love, the laughter, the life that is you and everyone who has left you. I looked back one last time at my best friend and then I let the light consume me.

Now I was ready to go.

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**A/N:** _Hopefully this tale did not leave a greasy thumbprint. ;) I firmly believe that through the burdens of grief you find aspects of life that are poignant and darkly beautiful. I hope you can agree. Please let me know what you thought and review! Also, I am glad to be back to writing. I missed you guys!_


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